John's Blog

I was running around today and I stopped off to pay a charge bill, since I didn't notice it's due date till too late to drop it in the mail. One of the purchases on the charge was from the Sears Hardware store. It appeared on the statement as "Sears Roebuck". Dang, I hadn't thought about poor 'ol Roebuck for years!

A few Google hits later I found out just about everything I might want to know about Alvah C. Roebuck: A watchmaker hired by Richard Sears in 1887, they partnered and had incorporated as Sears, Roebuck and Company in 1893. By 1895 Roebuck was looking to get out but Sears put him in charge of a division that handled some of the hard goods that they sold. He also organized and financed other manufacturing companies and was responsible for inventing an innovative and best-selling typewriter. Although he was semi-retired, the '29 stock market crash forced him to return to work at Sears where he spent most of his time working on compiling a company history. Then in 1934, they trotted him out to make public appearances which proved popular enough that he continued them across the country for the next few years.

Looking for this info. caused me to start poking around Wikipedia, where the following lists also caught my eye:
List of companies named after people
List of famous pairs
List of people known by one name
List of people with things named after them
List of company name etymologies
List of people who became famous only in death
List of celebrities on The Simpsons
List of people widely considered eccentric
List of silly, pointless lists on Wikipedia